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Hernando Today

Don't Let Stress Affect How You Live Your Life

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by DR. JAMES DOBSON

Published: December 17, 2007

QUESTION: I have a lot of stress in my life and just don't know how to cope with it. Any suggestions? When the roof caves in at your house, when your little girl gets the measles or your teenager flunks a course in school or your spouse gets laid off at work, how do you cope with the stress?

DR. DOBSON: Your question reminds me of an old baseball story about Bill Klem, a famous National League umpire. He used to have a habit of hesitating a moment before signaling a ball or a strike. It was just a quirk of his. One day there was this hotshot young pitcher on the mound who would fire away, and Bill Klem would take his time calling the pitch.

Finally, in about the sixth inning the kid was getting irritated. He threw one crucial pitch and then just couldn't help yelling, "Come on, Bill. What is it?"

Klem pulled off his face mask, stared the kid down, and said, "It ain't nothing 'til I call it something."

Well, that's kind of the way it is in life. We can't stop the curveballs from coming our way, but we do get the privilege of deciding what to call them. You can determine whether a stressful time is the most horrible, terrible, unfair thing that ever happened to you or whether it's just another common problem that you'll manage to get through somehow.

Remember, also, that the way you react is being watched carefully by your kids. If we show them that we can cope, they'll also be more likely to handle their stress more easily.

QUESTION: My wife and I have two very strong-willed kids who are hard to handle. They seem to need to test us, and they're the happiest and most contented when we are the toughest on them. Why do they insist on making us growl at them and even punish them more than we'd like to?

DR. DOBSON: It is curious, isn't it, that some children seem to enjoy fighting with their parents? It's a function of the pugnacious temperament with which they are born. Many kids just like to run things and seem to enjoy picking fights.

There is another factor that is related to a child's sense of security. Let me illustrate it this way.

Imagine you're driving a car over the Royal Gorge Bridge in Colorado, which is suspended hundreds of feet above the canyon floor. As a first-time traveler, you're pretty tense as you drive across. It is a scary experience. I knew one little fellow who was so awed by the view over the side of the bridge that he said, "Wow, Daddy! If you fell off of here, it'd kill you constantly!"

Now suppose there were no guard rails on the side of the bridge. Where would you steer the car? Right down the middle of the road. Even though you don't plan to hit those protective railings along the side, you just feel more secure knowing that they're there.

It's the same way with children. There is security in defined limits. They need to know precisely what the rules are and who's available to enforce them. Whenever a strong-willed child senses that the boundaries may have moved, or that his or her parents may have lost their nerve, he or she will often precipitate a fight just to test the limits again. They may not admit that they want you to be the boss, but they breathe easier when you prove that you are.

Dr. Dobson is founder and chairman of the board of the nonprofit organization Focus on the Family, Colorado Springs, Colo., 80995 www.family.org). Questions and answers are excerpted from "Solid Answers" and "Bringing Up Boys," both published by Tyndale House.

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